"

"Your poor mother, too!--doting on Marianne."

"But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you any thing
to say about that?"

"Yes, yes, _that_ in particular. Your sister wrote to me again, you
know, the very next morning. You saw what she said. I was breakfasting
at the Ellisons,--and her letter, with some others, was brought to me
there from my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia's eye before it
caught mine;--and its size, the elegance of the paper, the hand-writing
altogether, immediately gave her a suspicion. Some vague report had
reached her before of my attachment to some young lady in Devonshire,
and what had passed within her observation the preceding evening had
marked who the young lady was, and made her more jealous than ever.
Affecting that air of playfulness, therefore, which is delightful in a
woman one loves, she opened the letter directly, and read its contents.
She was well paid for her impudence. She read what made her wretched.
Her wretchedness I could have borne, but her passion--her malice--at all
events it must be appeased. And, in short, what do you think of my
wife's style of letter-writing?--delicate--tender--truly feminine--was
it not?"

"Your wife! The letter was in your own hand-writing."

"Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as
I was ashamed to put my name to. The original was all her own--her own
happy thoughts and gentle diction. But what could I do! we were
engaged, every thing in preparation, the day almost fixed--but I am
talking like a fool. Preparation! Day! In honest words, her money was
necessary to me, and in a situation like mine, any thing was to be
done to prevent a rupture. And after all, what did it signify to my
character in the opinion of Marianne and her friends, in what
language my answer was couched? It must have been only to one end. My
business was to declare myself a scoundrel, and whether I did it with
a bow or a bluster was of little importance. 'I am ruined for ever in
their opinion,' said I to myself; 'I am shut out for ever from their
society, they already think me an unprincipled fellow, this letter
will only make them think me a blackguard one.' Such were my
reasonings, as, in a sort of desperate carelessness, I copied my
wife's words, and parted with the last relics of Marianne. Her three
notes--unluckily they were all in my pocket-book, or I should have
denied their existence, and hoarded them for ever--I wa